You find #GiveItUp damn appealing, don’t you? You get to be the hero for all those who are serving you day in and day out. Not to mention all those stingy colleagues at work who make you pay for coffee all the time. What better way to do yajna in these modern times than automating the damned thing, you think. Don’t you? You’re in for a surprise.

It’s outrageous to submit to foreign countries that there is only one Indian language, Hindi. That’s what Mr. Modi has done. No, Hindi is not the language of the people of India. It is the mother tongue of a trifling minority, and it must remain so if at all the Indian nation must be considered an ethical entity.

Digital India’s Narendra Modis will talk to every illiterate farmer more than his actual, flesh-and-blood neighbors. When that happens, the idea that India’s racial and linguistic diversity should be taken into account in India’s political system will be all but dead. If the different parts of India cannot communicate with the Centre at break-neck speed, the case for more regional autonomy becomes all the more clear as time rolls on. But with the kind of communication links Digital India is expected to bring in, the case is weakened. Or so the Centre thinks.

This government, like most monarchies in history, wants to get into people’s minds together with a dose of divinity. Once the common man falls for the scheme, he attaches divinity to the government itself. His mind cannot disentangle the two easily, even though the government is no more than India’s biggest corporation. Reason thus blinded, the poor fellow finds it nearly impossible to question those actions of the government which have a greater bearing on his own life. And that’s the whole idea.

Richard Feynman was perhaps the greatest science teacher ever. Just yesterday, I read a lecture of his titled What is Science and it did two things to me. One, it made me realize my responsibility as a father in inculcating the scientific spirit in my children. Two, it made me realize that everything he says about science is applicable to the social sciences, including political science. Since I have an interest in political science nowadays, let me use Feynman’s lecture to illustrate the importance of scientific spirit for political change.

I’d been having a love-hate relationship with social media from day one. On the night of June 8th, 2015, I decided I’ve had enough and deactivated my Facebook and Twitter accounts. I didn’t have the courage to tell everyone before doing it. Had I done that, there’d be so many requests to reconsider that I would’ve yielded. It’s happened a couple of times before. So, thanks a lot for encouraging me all these days on Facebook on Twitter. Those of you who did are the good reasons to be on Facebook and Twitter. But I need to move on. Let me explain why.

The States may be spending more on paper, but how much freedom do adolescents have to spend their pocket money? Spending power is not really political power. Earning power is political power. If the States were to themselves collect the money they spend, I’d call that real political power.

Sharada’s family lives in one of these independent republics which has seceded from India. But it’s completely land-locked by it. Like many of her friends, she feels she doesn’t have the choice of returning to India. Her son’s school, NAFL, is perhaps one of the best English medium schools in Bengaluru. That means Sharada has signed up for ten-foot compounds, closed doors, and a standing instruction to stand outside the compound while the instruction happens inside. Good English-medium schools make a virtue of these vices, and you’re easily sold since you have the picture of your office cubicle in mind. You leave your child to the self-appointed experts and go do what you think your job is.

The RSS it taking the right stance w.r.t. NGOs supported by foreign funds. It would be folly to think that foreign countries fund these organizations for purely humanitarian reasons. But there’s a catch. In a nation of foreigners, who is a foreigner and who isn’t?